Topping-out ceremony for two new medical research and diagnostics buildings

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LMU’s High-Tech Campus is one of the largest centers in Europe combining basic scientific research, teaching, clinical research, and technological innovation. Now this scientific hub is gaining new facilities that will make it even stronger. Today, Bavaria’s Building Minister Christian Bernreiter, Vice President for Finance and Administration at LMU Dr. Christoph Mülke, Medical Director of University of Munich Hospital Prof. Markus M. Lerch, and head of the relevant department at State Building Authority “Munich 2” Thomas Kaßner attended the topping-out ceremony for two new buildings: ICON, for the research of cardiovascular diseases (ICON – Interfaculty Center für Endocrine and Cardiovascular Disease Network Modelling and Clinical Transfer) and DIAG, for bacteriology and virology diagnostics at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute.

In his speech, Building Minister Bernreiter thanked everyone involved in the construction: “My sincerest thanks to all those whose commitment and hard work contributed to the keeping of the ambitious timetables despite the difficult situation. In times like these, this should not be taken for granted. With the two lighthouse projects ICON and DIAG, the High-Tech Campus is getting outstanding new facilities and Bavaria’s position as a center of medical excellence is being bolstered.”

“Top-level research needs state-of-the-art facilities, and the two new buildings that are now being constructed on LMU’s High-Tech Campus are an outstanding example of pioneering cooperation between the LMU Faculty of Medicine and University of Munich Hospital, and between research and healthcare,” says Dr. Christoph Mülke, Vice President for Finance and Administration at LMU. “We’re therefore delighted that the Bavarian state government and the federal German government are jointly funding these research buildings at LMU. This will further strengthen the positioning of our High-Tech Campus in Großhadern/Martinsried as an international research location.”

LMU’s new ICON building has a floor space of almost 7,000 square meters. It will be used for the development of new preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic strategies against cardiovascular diseases. Some 49 million euros in total are being invested in the building, with the costs shared between Bavaria and the federal government. This makes ICON the sixth LMU research project to have obtained federal funding. ICON is due to be completed at the end of 2024.

Building work is due to be finished one year earlier on the adjacent DIAG diagnostics building. It will bring together the facilities of the Chair of Medical Microbiology and the Chair of Virology, which have been geographically separated before now, into a single home measuring some 5,500 square meters. In addition to laboratories and offices, the building will house a one-stop diagnostic ‘street’ (Diagnostikstraße) and rooms for vaccination advice. For DIAG, the Bavarian government is investing a further 32 million euros.